The bathroom is the most personal room in the home. The art of the bath was most elegant under the Roman Empire. Bathing was considered a social event attended on a daily basis. The baths were a place to exercise, enjoy various health treatments and sumptuous meals. According to researchers, a visit might include everything from therapeutic massage to lectures on philosophy and art. Some baths had the luxury of constantly flowing hot springs. These baths were of huge proportions and the surroundings often consisted of beautiful grounds including courtyards and mass gardens and flowing fountains. From the apodyterium, a vestibule for undressing, the bather could move to the piscina, or swimming pool; or to the calderium, the steam bath or sauna, to experience a cleansing, calming sweat; the frigidarium, an invigorating cold water pool; the balneum, for a warm water bath; and the tepidarium, a place to rest
The bathers crossed the thresholds into dramatic interiors. High ceilings with inset marble and mosaics were quite common. The faucets of gold gushed out to as many as 25 bathers at a time. The people were allowed to move throughout the facility passing through lecture halls, massage rooms and the corridors for as long as they desired. They found spirituality through water. The Romans were among the first to reveal the sensual therapeutic qualities of bathing.
The habit of bathing has varied over the centuries. During the middle ages, bathing was not hygiene so much as the indulgence of physical pleasure. The common people frequented the public baths for feasting, drinking and other pursuits while the wealthy took part in the same activities in the home. The private bath was a place to entertain guests. They bathed in round vat-shaped tubs made of wood and lined with linen. They would soak under a draped canopy, listening to music and being served exotic food and drink by their host.
By the sixteenth century, health concerns provided support for this idea of “bathing”
The plagues and other widespread diseases of the Middle Ages had inspired a belief that water was a carrier of infection. Most people went to great lengths to actually avoid contact with water. Their objective was to maintain an appearance of cleanliness by keeping clean what was visible. Masking odors with perfumed and powders were the substitute.
Though six bathrooms were installed in the Palace of King Louis XIV he is said to have bathed only twice in his life and getting terribly ill after each occasion. The 264 chaises percees (toilets) he had installed were basically a chair with a hole in the seat. Naturally, these were draped in velvet and even painted with landscapes.
The flush toilet was invented for Queen Elizabeth in 1596 by her Godson Sir John Harrington. Unfortunately the devise fell into obscurity until a British mathematician, Alex Cumming, updated the design in 1775, adding a water barrier to block the passage of odor from the cesspool. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the invention appeared in British homes.
At the end of the eighteenth century, running water was available only in a few aristocratic homes and cleanliness was considered a luxury. Bathing slowly regained popularity. 150 baths existed in Paris in 1790 and ten years later that number doubled.
Among sixty-six mansions in that area in 1801, twenty-one featured private bathrooms.
Balzak, in 1837 welcomed the growing claims of the medical establishment that bathing was beneficial. The author described his feeling that bathing would be a health advantage, although he actually suggested it might weaken his productivity.
Benjamin Franklin brought the first bathtub to the United States in the 1780’s. In 1810, the first three-piece bathroom with toilet, tub and washbasin emerged in Philadelphia.
In 1851, when President Millard Fillmore had a bathtub installed in the White House, he was criticized for indulging in “monarchical luxury”
The value of bathing received powerful reinforcement in 1870 when Louis Pasteur’s discoveries confirmed the existence of a hidden bacterial world.
By the middle of the nineteenth century running water began to work it’s way into everyday life. Citywide plumbing systems brought water directly into homes. Water was first only brought into basements and carried up in buckets, however technology took advantage of water pressure and water distribution became possible
At the turn of the century, a change in bathing patterns appeared. The Industrial Revolution decreased manufacturing costs and more people could afford the luxuries being introduced by these manufacturers such as the bathtub. With hot running water and sewer systems, the tub was taken off it’s legs and took a permanent position in the bathroom. At last, after so many centuries, the private bathroom in every home became a reality.
Early Hotels were trendsetters for bathroom design. Today, baths are designed to suit individual needs with a multitude of opportunity.
Private baths, once the province of Kings, are taken for granted now. Bathing is a personal ritual, a private time when the senses are indulged. Everyday, we cleanse our bodies, ignite our energy and freshen our spirits in our private sanctuaries known as bathrooms.
